


Magic and all it Holds Dear

by TerribleTerribleOrbs



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Also I don't know if he canonically has a school of magic but divination makes the most sense to me, Also father-son, Angus overthinks magic, References to Allison DuBois, Teacher-Student Relationship, too many metaphores
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-10
Updated: 2019-11-10
Packaged: 2021-01-26 17:37:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21377938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TerribleTerribleOrbs/pseuds/TerribleTerribleOrbs
Summary: "Taako takes one look at Angus’ room, and he knows exactly what’s wrong. There are spellbooks littering the floor, scrolls and panicked notes covering every other surface. The kid is glaring down at his wand. His chest is heaving with barely restrained tears. It’s overthinking, plain n’ simple."Angus, like the good detective he is, has a tendency to overthink things. Magic being a fickle lover at the best of times doesn't help much, but Taako does what he can to help out. Also, he monologues. A lot.
Relationships: Angus McDonald & Taako
Comments: 13
Kudos: 121





	Magic and all it Holds Dear

**Author's Note:**

> This has been sitting in my docs for a few months, and I only just finished it off. I just liked writing about magic and magic users, okay? And magic being sentient is absolutely the BEST concept to play with.

Magic is tricky. Tricky to notice, tricky to wield, tricky to learn. Especially if you weren’t made for it. You could still  _ try _ , of course. Agonizingly rip it from spellbook pages that make your eyes swim, hopelessly grope for it until you have a grasp, and then  _ pull _ . Summon it with heavy breaths and chanting, forcing it from wherever it rests and  _ using _ it. It’s tiring, though, and damn near impossible. See, magic is almost  _ sentient _ . It breathes through its users and pumps blood through runes and artifacts. It  _ likes _ people, and it  _ dislikes _ people. Hell, you could even make it turn against you. Frustrate it to no end. 

Taako had held magic from a young age, even when he didn’t know it. You see, it absolutely  _ adores _ elves. Back on that first plane, hundreds of years ago, there were only a handful of elves that didn’t grow up channeling it, letting it crawl around their palms and gently bend to their will. When he first saw it in action, it was like a spark shot off in his body. A distant thrumb beneath his skin, a tingling in his fingertips, all begging to be unleashed. Lup felt it too - of course, it wasn’t a distant, unknown thrumb for her so much as a persistent fire under her skin. A burning from the inside out, another heartbeat just  _ begging _ to be heard. 

And heard, it was.

There’d been a rough patch, later on. Overthinking was the culprit. Get one thing wrong - not that it really  _ had _ been wrong, in the end - and suddenly the magic slipped from Taako’s fingertips. Slippery and unknowable and  _ frustrating _ . Taako normally didn’t mind all that much when spells would twist one way instead of the other. Magic was it’s own thing, and he wasn’t about to piss it off by stomping and yelling. But this, this was something else. Suddenly something so simple had gone so awry and forty people were  _ dead _ and-

He was overthinking. 

===

Taako takes one look at Angus’ room, and he knows exactly what’s wrong. There are spellbooks littering the floor, scrolls and panicked notes covering every other surface. The kid is glaring down at his wand. His chest is heaving with barely restrained tears. It’s overthinking, plain n’ simple.

“Hatchi matchi, pumpkin’” Taako mutters, stepping over an Angus-tall pile of books. “Y’know how unnecessary this is, right?” 

“Maybe for you, sir,” Angus replies, voice shaking. “But this is - it won’t work any other way for me.”

“Wrong-o, Ango,” Taako says airily. He picks up a thick volume and reads the cover.  _ Allison DuBois’s Guide To “Reading” Your Man _ , is printed is big, curled pink lettering, right above a picture of two wedding rings. He turns it towards Angus with a raised brow.

“I asked the shopkeeper for  _ everything _ relating to Divination, and she grabbed that,” Angus mutters after a moment, cheeks red. Taako, saint that he is, drops the book onto the pile instead of teasing him endlessly for it. Besides, there’s actually a teachable moment, here.

“Angus, hun, you’re insulting magic by reading this shit.” He says.

“You can’t _insult_ magic, sir,” Angus replies. “It’s pure energy that one can evoke using the words and ingredients that are somehow tied to it.”

“See, more insults,” Taako says. He stalks past Angus and makes himself comfy on the bed. It’s way too small for his elf-length body, but he’d really rather not stand around for what’s bound to be a very long, very  _ exasperating _ conversation. Explaining magic to a normal eleven-year-old would be hard on its own, but explaining it to a kid who actually likes to _question_ things? Hatchi _matchi_. “Question, babe: In all of the trashy ‘divination’ books you’ve been reading, how many of them have said something along of the lines of ‘magic is alive’?”

“Almost all of them, sir,” Angus answers. “But they’re just saying that because it sounds profound.”

“I absolutely agree with you on that front, Angus, but they’re not wrong.” Taako pushes his hat over his eyes. “Magic _ is _ alive. It’s alive and it loves me. It loves my sister and Barry, and even fucking Merl. It loves  _ Joaquin Terrero _ . And it loves us because we respect it, we cherish it, we wield it and we wield it  _ good _ .”

“You’re not making sense, sir.” Angus huffs. He pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose, but the movement is so jerky and short-tempered that they just slip down again. 

“Magic doesn’t make sense, pumpkin’. That’s your problem,” Taako sits up, letting his wizard hat slip down past his head and onto his lap. “You’re a detective, kiddo, and a good one at that. So you wanna figure it out. Solve it. But Divination isn’t just a case you crack, Ango. It’s simply there, thrumming in the air and waiting for you to just take a deep breath and-” he snaps his fingers. Some completely unnecessary sparks sizzle out from between his fingers as  _ Allison DuBois’s Guide To “Reading” Your Man _ disappears from the room in a puff of purple smoke (and reappears in Taako’s living room, where he can laugh at it with Lup later). “It was always there for me, Angus. I felt it because I wanted to feel it and it liked that about me.” He slips off the bed and kneels before Angus, who he knows magic  _ adores _ . 

“Magic loves you, Angus. You just gotta figure out what that love feels like, so you can return it. What does magic feel like to you, Ango?” 

Angus closes his eyes. Taako does the same, just to take a moment and feel his own power, swirling around inside. It’s easy to forget, sometimes, just how hard controlling it is for some people when he can _always_ feel it there. Angus takes an aggravated deep breath, and Taako sighs right along with him. Maybe he needs a little guidance, is all. 

“Most of the time it’s just this restless buzzing in my  _ hands _ ,” He says. He thinks that’s why his fingers are always tapping or scratching, why he can’t hold ‘em still to save his life. “It crawls up my arms, too, makes my joints sort of stiff. Most magic users are pretty restless, and that’s probably why.” Angus’ annoyed huffs quiet down. “Lup says it’s like a fire is eating her alive when she isn’t using magic. Evocation might just be hungrier than transmutation, or something, I dunno. But it’s in her hands, too, and in her  _ skull _ . She says her scalp sort of itches, like her hair is seconds away from catching fire. Her hands are also restless, charged with power. Merl says he feels it in his hands and chest and _feet_, which like, gross. Says it feels  _ warm _ , like someone else is holding on. Probably because Pan is the one giving him his magic."

“I-” Angus stops, takes a calm breath. “I feel it in my head. And in my stomach. Sort of in my chest? And…”

“The hands?”

“Not so much, but a little bit. Mostly in the front of my head. I know that there's something there, and it's like it wants to tell me something. I guess that makes sense, given the whole Divination thing and all." He takes another deep sigh. "It feels sort of like when you forget a word, but... less frustrating. It just feels like I _know_ something, but it’s both a gut feeling and a provable  _ truth _ . Sort of like when I’m doing detective work.” He looks up at Taako and grins. 

Taako grins back.

  
“Yeah,” He says, ruffling Angus’ hair because  _ too many emotions _ . “Magic _likes_ you.”

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to leave comments :)


End file.
